The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a 2007 sci-fi comedy film starring Emma Watson as the title character. The film is based on Nagaru Tanigawa's first Haruhi Suzumiya light novel. Several sequels were produced as 3-D TV specials on ABC, in which the cast of the film reprised their roles and Emma herself directed the specials in their entirety. Plot Kyon is an ordinary first-year high school student who, self-admittedly, has given up his fantasies of espers, time travelers, and aliens as he left middle school. However, sitting behind him is the beautiful, intelligent, and eccentric girl Haruhi Suzumiya, who in her class introduction blatantly states her singular desire to meet aliens, time travelers, or espers. Interested, Kyon starts trying to make small talk with her before class, eventually leading to normal conversations with Haruhi. One day, after making a comment about Haruhi's displeasure with the available school clubs, he finds himself dragged into membership of the newly formed Save the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya (or SOS) Brigade. Haruhi quickly claims the Literature Club's room and its sole member, the silent bibliophile Yuki Nagato as property of the SOS Brigade and "voluntary arrests" the timid but cute Mikuru Asahina and the polite, smiling Itsuki Koizumi as the club's other two members. As the story progresses, however, Kyon finds that each of these supposedly "helpless victims" are actually agents of fantastic organizations who have been sent to monitor Haruhi, who they explain as having superhuman abilities of manipulating the universe. Haruhi's unawareness of her powers means that she unconsciously creates a new universe—one more to her liking—and attempts to switch over whenever she becomes bored or otherwise dissatisfied with reality. To prevent this, the members of Haruhi's club spend their time trying to keep their god-like leader entertained, hold her powers in check, and maintain the illusion of a normal life. Cast Trivia *Each scene was shot in the order they would be presented in for the final cut. *As time went on during production, Emma Watson delved so deep into the part of Haruhi Suzumiya, she eventually became Haruhi Suzumiya. This frightened Steven E. DeSouza so much he stayed away from her at all times for the rest of the shoot, having her ghost-direct all her own scenes while he himself handled scenes Haruhi doesn't appear in. *One of few films to have a bleep censor added during post-production. The bleeped line in question is "Then I'll tell everyone at school that all you geeks ganged up on her and fucked her!" This was necessary because the studio was aiming for a PG-13 rating (and that F word was used in a sexual context, which normally all but guarantees an R rating). Everyone was surprised when the MPAA instead slapped the film with a PG rating for, among other things, "bullying" (examples of that include Haruhi forcing Kyon to join the SOS Brigade, Haruhi abusing Mikuru on several occasions, and Haruhi blackmailing the Computer Research Society into handing over a computer). Emma Watson even went on record as saying, "I can't believe the MPAA considered my sexual harassment of Mikuru as mere bullying. At least this wasn't rated G, or we'd have moral guardians at our throats within seconds. Ah, well. We'll let them take their children and see what they think." Disney cautiously used the '70s-style PG wording (which used "pre-teenagers" instead of "children"), and the film attracted very little, if any, controversy and would go on to come closest to knocking Titanic off the spot as highest grossing movie of all time (until Avatar successfully did so in 2010). Disney has since released its sequels on home video unrated (except for a TV-14 bug on the back of the packaging), and to date, this has been one of few Haruhi Suzumiya properties to be submitted to the MPAA and the only one to be rated PG (the anime film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and the Kyon: Big Damn Hero movies were the other ones that were submitted, and they all came back with PG-13 ratings, much to Disney's relief). *This is the only live-action entry in the Haruhi Suzumiya series to include the full versions of the Disney and Cinergi opening logos. The specials use black print logos against a colored background, which would be revealed to be part of the environment upon zoom-out. *Emma Watson is credited as the film's "ultra director", under the pseudonym "Haruhi Suzumiya" (the same pseudonym she would later use when directing the specials). *Doug Walker reportedly liked this movie and said that the only reason why he had the Nostalgia Critic give a bad review was because he wanted to poke fun at the detractors of this film. Chester A. Bum, meanwhile, gave a positive review, and Walker's actual opinion ran thus: "Seriously though, Haruhi Suzumiya was AWESOME!" *When Haruhi throws the Computer Club president onto Mikuru, he emits the Wilhelm scream. *This is one of the highest grossing films of all time. *One of few films where Emma Watson actually looked Asian. Rupert Grint, Kay Panabaker, and Anna Popplewell also wore makeup to look Asian. This was done to blend in with the crowd (though inexplicably, Haley Joel Osment and Jett Lucas, who portray Taniguchi and Kunikida, still look Caucasian). *The final half hour of the film was converted to 3D for digital and IMAX screens. *The song playing as Haruhi tells Kyon about why she views the world the way she does is "A Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)" by Megadeth. *The theatrical trailer premiered before Pocket Monsters and features "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "Bouken deshou deshou?" by the Remington Steelers. Release See also: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya home video releases The film premiered at Kōshien Stadium in Nishinomiya on May 29, 2007. Emma Watson was in attendance, showing up wearing a black leather jacket, a yellow tank top, and blue jeans, identical to Haruhi's costume in the early minutes of the film. Before the film started, Emma led the audience through the dance associated with "Hare hare yukai", which the Remington Steelers had covered and would release that day as In 3-D's best-selling single (the first batch sold out before the day was done!). The film was released on July 11, 2007 and was screened completely flat in 35mm, with digital and IMAX screenings featuring the half-hour finale converted to 3-D. The film was rated PG "for thematic material and bullying, and for some language". An unrated version exists with additional footage of Anna Popplewell as Mikuru, as well as uncensored profanity (including the songs "It's So Easy" and "You're Beautiful", both of which used edited recordings in the PG version) and the addition of blood during the Yuki vs. Ryouko fight scene. The film was released on 2-tape Betamax and VHS and 3-disc DVD on December 25, 2007. The PG and unrated covers were virtually identical save for a Parental Advisory on the front of the unrated cover. On December 25. 2008, the film made its BluRay debut with 3 discs. The covers were identical to the DVD covers save for references to BluRay replacing the DVD references. Like the 3-disc DVD, the first disc contained the 2-D version, while the second disc contained the 3-D version (with all 3-D footage converted to traditional anaglyphic for home video) and the third disc contains both 2-D and 3-D special features, including a dance-along video taped in SlayerVision 3-D featuring Emma, Kay Panabaker, and Anna dancing to "Hare hare yukai" as originally recorded by Aya Hirano, the original voice of Haruhi.